Surface-water supporting guide
How to Search the TCEQ Water Rights Viewer
Use the viewer to identify a candidate authorization, preserve its official identifiers and documents, and return to property evidence without treating a map point or recorded holder as a title conclusion.
Complete an operational viewer search and produce a bounded candidate record for later deed, title, survey, seller, or professional comparison.
Return to surface-water-rights research hub →Editorial record
Research approach
Official-source review, source comparison, editorial drafting, and substantive claim checks against the cited sources before publication.
Start with the evidence
Use the viewer to create a candidate, not a conclusion
The TCEQ Water Rights Viewer can display authorization locations and related information, including linked records and documents. Its map is a research interface: it helps locate and identify a possible authorization, but it does not establish that the right belongs to the tract being researched.
The durable output is a candidate worksheet containing the search date, authorization number, permit or certificate information, recorded holder as displayed, basin, purpose, diversion or impoundment location, place-of-use details, documents opened, and questions for comparison.
Before you begin
Prepare the viewer search
- Property address for orientation plus county, legal description, survey, appraisal materials, deed history, and known surface-water features.
- Any authorization, permit, certificate, account, diversion, reservoir, or basin identifiers already present in the seller or title file.
- Seller information about diversion, impoundment, irrigation, storage, water use, transfers, reservations, or prior correspondence.
- A blank candidate record so map observations remain separate from deed, title, survey, and seller evidence.
Step by step
Operational Water Rights Viewer workflow
Open the official viewer and orient
Start from the official TCEQ Water Rights Viewer page and open the viewer. Use the address or known location to orient the map, then compare roads, streams, reservoirs, and property materials without treating a base layer as a surveyed boundary.
Set useful layers and scale
Follow the official user guide to display relevant authorization, point-of-diversion, place-of-use, or related layers. Zoom and pan beyond the tract because a candidate diversion or authorization feature may not sit on the property.
Open each plausible feature
Use the viewer’s identify or selection tools to open a candidate. Record the authorization identifier, permit or certificate information, basin, purpose, recorded holder as displayed, location details, and the layer that produced the result.
Open related records and documents
Follow available links or related-record tools to the authorization record, documents, and water-use information. Record which documents opened, their official URLs, and any missing or inaccessible item.
Preserve map observations accurately
Describe the displayed point, diversion or impoundment location, and place-of-use information as map observations. Do not rewrite a recorded holder field as current title ownership.
Return to property evidence
Compare the candidate with the legal description, deed history, title materials, survey, seller information, and relevant documents. Mark the result as candidate, likely match, conflicting, no public result, or interpretation unresolved.
Preserve the trail
Viewer details worth preserving
Authorization identity
Authorization number, permit or certificate information, account or record identifier, basin, purpose, status as displayed, and search date.
Mapped information
Point of diversion, diversion or impoundment location, place-of-use information, layer name, map scale, and a note that displayed geography may be approximate.
Record trail
Recorded holder exactly as displayed, linked documents opened, water-use records viewed, direct official URLs, property evidence compared, conflicts, and professional-review questions.
Hypothetical example
The invented Reservoir-Edge Tract
In this fictional example, the viewer shows a diversion point near a reservoir and a place-of-use feature that appears close to the tract. The recorded holder name resembles an older name in the deed chain, but no authorization number appears in the current title material.
- Record the displayed authorization details, layer, search date, recorded holder wording, and approximate map relationship.
- Open the linked authorization documents and water-use information available through the official pathways.
- Compare the candidate with the legal description, deed history, title materials, survey, and seller information.
- Send title, transfer, validity, and legal-effect questions to the appropriate attorney or title professional.
Research outcome: The viewer result remains a candidate authorization. Similar names and nearby map features do not establish current ownership or transfer with the tract.
Final review
Finish with a property-evidence comparison
- Preserve identifiers, recorded holder wording, map observations, documents, official URLs, and the viewer search date.
- Compare the authorization record with the legal description, deed chain, title materials, survey, and seller information.
- Label missing records, conflicts, unclear documents, title questions, and transfer questions as unresolved.
- Use the candidate for a professional handoff or TREC research note; do not present it as proof that the right belongs to or transfers with the property.
Research boundary
What this page cannot establish
- A mapped point, place-of-use shape, authorization record, document, or recorded holder field is not proof that a water right belongs to or transfers with a property.
- Viewer geography and boundaries are informational and may be approximate; they are not a legal, engineering, or survey determination.
- A no-result search does not prove that no authorization, historical record, contractual interest, or other relevant water issue exists.
- This page does not determine title, ownership, validity, transferability, compliance, priority, available quantity, or the legal effect of an authorization or document.
Source record
Official sources checked
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Water Rights Viewer
Official TCEQ viewer page describing available water-right information and the limits of mapped data.ReviewedTexas Commission on Environmental Quality
Water Rights Viewer User Guide
Official TCEQ instructions for viewer navigation, layers, queries, related records, documents, and water-use results.ReviewedTexas Commission on Environmental Quality